The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at UT received a $270,000 grant to fund the center’s general operating costs and the pay for the center’s annual conference, the Austin Forum, for the next two years.

The Open Society Foundations, which work to advance justice in marginalized countries, awarded the grant.

“[The grant] is an acknowledgment of the work the Knight Center has been doing in the Latin Americas and the Caribbean by helping journalists to improve the quality of journalism in their own countries,” said Rosental Alves, director of the center.

The last two years, the center’s Austin Forum, an annual conference for media development in Latin America and the Caribbean, was on specific topics such as the coverage of drug violence in the Americas. The next Austin Forum will be held on Sept. 9 and 10 and will be on international migrations in the region, Alves said.

Alves said the center has been successful in inspiring and helping create several organizations dedicated to investigative journalism.

“We work with empowering journalists, not only with the training of techniques but helping them create their own organizations to improving the standards of journalism in their country, therefore contributing to the working of democracy in the region,” Alves said.